economic justice

Join Stephanie Poggi, Executive Director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, and abortion fund advocates from the front lines in a public conversation about the damaging impact of four decades of banning Medicaid funding for abortion and the role that abortion funds are playing in a renewed movement to restore public funding.

Why do we fund abortions? Listen to members of the National Network of Abortion Funds tell you why abortion access matters, in their own words.

We will never stop funding abortions for people can't otherwise afford abortion care. And we'll never stop our advocacy to remove funding bans that deny low-income communities and women of color the ability to make their own decisions. Join us.

Sarah Tuttle is on the board of the Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity in Texas. This morning, she delivered an excellent Twitter treatise on Abortion Access Month -- as an abortion fund volunteer, she has a firsthand view of the damaging effects of longstanding bans on abortion funding and the dwindling access to abortion services in her state.

Abortion has been legal in the US for more than 40 years. But roadblocks, detours, delays and staggering costs all mean that abortion is nearly out of reach for many. It's time for a conversation about why so many people are kept at the margins, and what that means for their lives.

By National Network of Abortion Fund board members Eesha Pandit and Verónica Bayetti Flores. Cross-posted from Feministing.

What does it really take to get an abortion in America?

September is Abortion Access Month, and an important time to think about this question. As it turns out, it takes quite a bit to get an abortion in this country, and as states across the nation pile on waiting periods, ultrasound requirements, bans, and other barriers, accessing safe and legal abortion care is becoming more difficult by the day. One of the biggest hurdles for folks seeking abortion care is the fact that, for many, it is quite simply unaffordable. Who are the folks that cannot afford abortion care?

Watch Katherine Miller, a volunteer with the Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity, as she's interviewed by ABC News in Austin, Texas, on the day that Governor Rick Perry signed sweeping abortion restrictions into law: "It's very important that people understand what access really means. It's not just for rich women. These laws make it so that only certain women of certain means are going to be able to access medical care."

The National Network of Abortion Funds joins a diverse coalition of 52 organizations representing advocates for low-income women and women of color, youth communities, people of faith, health care providers, and voting rights advocates to defend District of Columbia's budget autonomy and lift the ban on Medicaid abortion coverage in DC.

This is such a simple concept that I can't believe we still have to say it, but we do:

The legal right to an abortion means nothing to a person who can’t get to the clinic, the person who can’t speak the language spoken in the clinic, the person who doesn’t have enough money to pay for it, the person who doesn’t have the documentation required.

Texas State Senator Wendy Davis knows it. That’s why she stood for 12 hours in a dramatic filibuster on the floor of the Senate. State Senator Leticia Van De Putte knows it. That’s why she left her father’s funeral, drove 3 hours and arrived on the Senate floor to speak against Texas Senate Bill 5. Also in the know are the hundreds of people, men and women alike, who protested their hearts out for hours—and days—on end and ultimately were the ones who pushed the special session to an end before a vote could be reached on the regressive bill that would make abortion inaccessible to millions of Texans.

20 years ago this month, frustrated by a lack of commitment on the part of political leaders to repeal the Hyde Amendment, determined to ensure that more women and girls would be able to get an abortion without sacrificing basic needs, and infused with the spirit of solidarity, activists with two dozen abortion funds met to form the National Network of Abortion Funds. That meeting turned out to be the first of many.

This week activists from around the world representing over a hundred abortion funds are gathered in Oakland, California to strategize.

To learn from one another.

And to celebrate our 20th anniversary.

We fund abortions because we view the right to abortion as a fundamental human right. And we will be here until there is no longer a need. Over the past twenty years, abortion funds have distributed over $39 million, helping over 340,000 women get abortions they would otherwise not be able to afford.